


songbird

by sk4di



Series: unlikely [2]
Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I have so many things to write abt this but yeah im lazy whatever, Kid Fic, disclaimer: debbie is not physically in it but at the same time this is entirely about her, idk i keep coming back to this verse, this trio deserved a tv show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:08:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26879455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sk4di/pseuds/sk4di
Summary: Because it didn't matter if there was no time, how busy she was, or how much she tried to not think about her, she did every now and then.
Relationships: Lou Miller/Debbie Ocean
Series: unlikely [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1961611
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	songbird

**Author's Note:**

> hey demons it's me again ya boy
> 
> I hope you like it

Toni barely thought about _her_ at all, to be honest. 

She had a routine that kept her busy, she had a plan to avoid distractions, there was little time left to think about her. She had school, she had her trashy novels, she had the greatest city in the world around her, she had a future to decide and she had a mom that cared so much it actually hurt. 

There was no time to think of _her_ , she said to herself. No time at all.

"Where are you?" Lou asked.

The question brought Toni back to Earth, where she clearly never left physically, but mentally she was far gone into distances humanity can only dream of. She noticed she had been staring at the floor of the club's storage for God knows how long. That bean bag was not very comfortable, her back was hurting from sitting there too long.

"Uh...her," was the girl's answer.

Because it didn't matter if there was no time, how busy she was, or how much she tried to not think about _her_ , she did every now and then. 

She thought about how _her_ until it choked her. She wondered about what _she_ was thinking inside that place - and she wondered about what _she_ didn't think, too. She wanted to write and ask if _she_ misses chicken nuggets because Toni for sure would miss chicken nuggets. Do they even have chicken nuggets in there?

It was not the answer Lou was expecting, certainly. She probably was betting her chips on the small pile of envelopes containing admission letters from schools sitting on their coffee table at home. So Lou just nodded in response. She was making notes on a clipboard about the new arrived bottles of vodka, trying to not make a big deal out of anything, as always.

Toni knew Lou thought about _her_ too, probably more than she did - no, _certainly_ more. Sometimes Lou stared a little bit too long when a brunette woman passed through them on the streets. Other times she avoided specific albums of her collection. And most of the time she dedicated all her free time to Toni; there was never anyone around even if there were a lot of people who wanted to be around her, Lou never dared to let anyone step even close to the space that was _hers_. Toni was sure she had her flings and adventures out there, but that's all what they were.

Sometimes, Toni decided that she missed _her_ twice: one for herself, one for Lou.

So if moving on was not an option, they made the present work. Toni would come straight from school to the empty club everyday and do her homework sitting anywhere she found to nest - the office, the storage, the bar - while Lou worked on making the place ready for the evening. After that, they would eat and Lou would go back to the club for a few more hours before going home for the night, or they would go home and eat and Lou would stay there with her, listening to albums, watching a movie, helping her with her flashcards. That way, theoretically, none of them had much time to think about _her_ \- and if they happened to find themselves in a point in which they couldn't avoid, at least they had each other, at least they understood each other, at least they could say _she hates olives so much_ as they remove the little green things from their pizza or _this is so her_ as they see a black piece of clothing while shopping and know that they were being understood.

"Which one would have her vote?" Toni asked, tapping her pencil against her knee.

"She'd be with me about Yale," Lou said, without looking up.

Toni eyed her. _She_ for sure wouldn't vote for Harvard, Harvard had no one's vote. Or would _she_? Maybe Stanford. Maybe Dartmouth, with Danny. She just couldn't stand her own wondering anymore, all the walking in circles around her mind, all the streets with no endings.

Lou closed a paper box and put it on a shelf. "I could write to ask, if you want."

Writing was a risk, always. It was used for death in the family or exceptional occurrences. She wanted to say "yes, mom, please, write to _her_ and ask what _she_ thinks about my higher education" but she knew better. This wasn't urgent, she wasn't even sure she was really going to college. She could always drop everything and be who she was born to be - a thief. She didn't need a college education for that, just...well, she didn't know what she needed. Maybe she needed _her_ guidance.

"No, I believe you," Toni said, extending her legs on the bean bag, white Nikes sliding over grey floor. "Yale it is."

Lou put down her clipboard and picked up a box full of empty bottles, putting it on the table. "You have no idea how much I resist saying Columbia," she said with a smirk.

Staying in New York was tempting - she would be home, after all. But she had a list of specific classes she could only attend in Yale with very specific professors and Lou knew that. Lou would never let her exchange that for the luxury of being nearer each other.

"I might as well do it. I have to keep an eye on you," Toni mumbled.

"Don't worry, baby, I'm going nowhere you can't follow me."

Toni heard that a million times after routine became just the two of them. Lou always said in a half charming, half cocky way, but Toni knew she meant it.

It's funny because Lou didn't have to be anything to her. There was nothing linking them together, nothing but a miracle. The miracle that one day that crazy Australian lady decided to be her mom. Every Thanksgiving that was the one thing Toni was thankful for. Where would she be otherwise? That's a question she never found the strength to face, always hitting dead ends, walking into mental labyrinths she couldn't get out for hours.

"Are you good to go, genius?" Lou asked passing by Toni and ruffling her hair on her way to the main floor. "I'm starving."

Toni looked down at the two lines she had written about Nietzsche on the blank page of her notebook. "Yeah." She closed and slid it inside her messenger bag, getting up and following Lou out through the door.

She would do her homework later, when Lou came back to the club and she is alone in the loft, hoping that the thought of _her_ would leave her alone. Her routine failed.

* * *

"You're up," Lou said as she got home that night and found Toni laying her head under the lamplight on her desk, a couple of books open and a page filled with her loopy calligraphy.

The girl supported her elbows on the table and rubbed her eyes under her glasses. "I can't sleep," she said. Can't fall asleep, can't stop thinking. "It's too cold in here."

Their new home was peculiar and Toni wasn't fond of it at the beginning. The whole scary abandoned whorehouse wasn't very appealing to her, neither was the terrible heating system, but she adapted. She had a bigger bedroom, an old one with a large en suite bathroom and an old wooden bookcase wall. "This one is yours. I knew from the moment I came here for the first time," Lou said about the bedroom as she showed the loft to Toni as soon as she got the keys. And well, after that Toni didn't even had to try to adapt, she just loved it. It was their place, it felt like a physical, large, terribly cold, remark of the promise Lou kept making her: she wasn't going anywhere, she was right there for her.

"It's Friday, you don't have to do all your homework tonight," Lou told her, entering the room and placing her hands on the girl's shoulder, looking over her head. "Oh, it's done."

Toni didn't mention how she wrote the whole thing only to avoid her obsessive thinking. She just ran a hand through the scribbled words while the other grabbed one of Lou's on her shoulder.

She didn't remember the exact moment when she realized what it meant to be who she was, what her last name meant. She doesn't remember missing her parents, she doesn't remember understanding they were dead. She just knew that ever since she got reason, Lou was the hand on her shoulder, the goodnight kiss to her forehead and the arms to cuddle her whenever she needed. She couldn't remember a time Lou wasn't a mother to her in every sense of the word.

"I think I'm having a breakdown," she said aloud, finally, because it was only Lou, her unlikely mom.

She felt Lou's hands squeeze her shoulders then rub her arms and she could feel now Lou's lips against the crown of her head. "Talk to me?" A kiss, another squeeze, this time on the tender skin of her forearms, just where the pulled sleeves of her grey sweatshirt started to show skin.

But Toni didn't. Her body started shaking and she realized, it was happening. Under Lou's undivided attention, came the point in which she couldn't stand all the pressure she put on herself and she broke. The sobs erupting from her mouth became louder and louder and at some point the tears began.

"Okay, that's fine too," Lou said against her hair. "Just as fine as talking." She held the girl firmly, stopping only to remove her glasses, lips against her temple, eventually kissing the spot, murmuring sweet nothings. "Baby, breathe. Remember to breathe."

Toni didn't even cry as baby, they used to tell her. They thought she was broken or something, traumatized from what happened, not sure how much she had seen or how much she understood of the day her clan was murdered. As a child, crying was rare enough for them to remember the couple of times it happened. As a teenager, Lou had just given up on the idea the girl would ever cry again.

She even didn't cry when _she_ was arrested or when they heard about _her_ veredict. Toni just moved on, accepted the extremely scarce contact and arranged her life to the changes they would have to face. She put herself into school, into jogging down the beach and into being Lou's person. 

"Here, get up, you don't want to mess up your essay with your tears," Lou said in a light tone, propping Toni to leave the chair and settle on her bed, pulling the covers before the girl took the spot.

Toni, not really with the strength to protest or in the right mind to care about her homework, just accepted the sight of the fluffy pillows as soon it appeared in front of her.

"It's okay, you're okay, I'm right here," Lou said, laying by her side and rubbing circles against her back as she cried quietly, the only sign of the wail was her shaking body.

She didn't keep record of the amount of time she cried. When she finally felt her heartbeat starting to slow down, when she could finally breathe without having to force herself to, when the world around her started to appear again, Lou was still there, by her side. If it wasn't for the hand lazily running through her hair then back the hair again, in a perpetual light touch, Toni would have thought she had fallen asleep.

"I-" Toni started, voice muffled by the pillow, her throat was sore from crying. She gulped down and rubbed her eyes. She was suddenly so tired. "I miss her, mom."

Amidst all the wonderful traits Toni shared with _her_ came the infuriating one of being awfully laconic when the matter was her feelings. Admitting something like that aloud required so much effort, Toni felt drained by the time the last syllable slipped out of her tongue.

"I know, baby. I miss her too," Lou said, her voice soft as velvet, coming from somewhere near Toni's ear.

Toni turned her head in the direction of the voice. Lou's head was laying close, sharing her pillow. She was on her side, her blue eyes full of sympathy staring right at the girl behind her bangs, her hand resting warmly on her scapula. Toni leaned closer and touched their foreheads together, ready to give in into her tiredness.

"Does she ever think of me?" She unintentionally asked in a small voice, regretting it the moment it happened. How was Lou supposed to have that answer? They barely talked to not raise awareness to their connection.

There was a beat, a quiet moment in which Lou busied herself with drying Toni's face with the edge of the pillowcase, soothing the red mark that was always on the bridge of her nose at the end of the day because of the glasses, sweeping the stray locks of chestnut hair from her face.

"I never told you this," Lou said, propping herself up in one elbow, staring down at Toni. "I always thought of it as a secret, something I should've seen. But it isn't, really. 

"You were a terrible sleeper, the worse. You'd stay awake and stare out of the window until late hours of the night; I found it to be so funny, like you understood the concept of insomnia," Lou spoke with an amused grin and Toni couldn't help but smile a little too, soothed by the sound of her mom's voice. "Back then we were much younger, you see, we partied and not even you could stop us. So this time we come home, you were around two, and you are awake, as always, and the sitter, poor thing, is going nuts - Debbie and I had gotten a fat wallet that night, so she was very generous with the tip. I pick you and try to make you sleep, thinking, well, it's 3 a.m. she must be tired, she just needs me." She affectionately pinched Toni's ear, warm hand coming to scratch the back of the kid's neck softly. "I sat with you by the window and waited, fingered your hair, rubbed your back, but you had other ideas and soon wasted me was the one falling asleep.

"So I wake up half an hour later and you're gone. I get up and look around the living room, then the kitchen, then your room, then mine, but you are nowhere. I am ready to wake up Deb and say 'honey, someone stole the kid' but before I enter her bedroom I notice her bedside lamp is on. She is awake. I watch from her door, semi-open, she has her back to me but I finally find you. You're asleep in her arms with your head on her shoulder, she is holding you like- like a teddy bear. Your face looks so peaceful, so calm. She is swaying side by side, rocking you and- and she is singing." Lou smiled at the memory. "You know her, she doesn't sing.

"But she was singing, to you. _Out in the ocean, sailing away, I can't hardly wait to see you come out of age,_ " she sang that part. "The one Lennon wrote for his boy. It's a shame you can't remember, really, because you're probably the only ears to whom that singing existed. She was unaware you were already asleep, so she kept singing. She sang the whole song, over and over again.

"I listened until I couldn't anymore. I couldn't let her know I was there or she would stop. I dreaded the entire silent walk back to the armchair by the window. I don't think she knows I saw that. She went to find me later, shaking me awake and telling me to go to sleep because 'kiddo is in bed'."

They both laugh a little at her attempted imitation of _her_.

But Lou suddenly got a slight frown, an almost serious expression in her face. "See, Toni, this was one moment, something I intruded in. It's just a song, but I know she meant it." Her eyes were deep into Toni's brown ones.

Toni always wondered if having those eyes around made things better or worse for Lou. She didn't dare to ask, though.

"I have the pleasure of knowing her, beyond of those walls she build, really knowing her - so do you," Lou resumed. "And I can assure you that she cares, baby. She cares a lot about you, she is just- she shows it by action." Lou sighs. "And since she is not here to show you that, I want to tell you that she can't wait to see who you are going to be." Her eyes glistened in a way that made Toni's eyes shed silent tears. "It doesn't matter if it's a thief or an astronaut, she is fascinated by that brilliant freak mind of yours." She paused and wiped away Toni's tears. "And so am I."

Lou smiled and leaned in to kiss her cheek. "It shouldn't be a secret to you that she cares for you. Keep that in mind, okay?"

Toni nodded, overwhelmed with the rush of tenderness and peace that ran over her body. It was the bottle of water after a intense run, the feeling of being under the morning sun, the smell of homemade cookies. Her mind stopped and she was ready to fall asleep when one last thought ran through her mind, a last try of her worrying mind to ruining that moment.

"Will you be disappointed on me if I choose to stay?" Toni asked, as Lou pulled the cover over them and laid her head back on the pillow beside Toni's head.

Toni scooted closer to lay her head on her shoulder, tucked against her side, hand fumbling with her silky purple shirt as if she was a little kid again.

Lou's arm encircled around her, bringing her closer. The loft may be cold as North Pole, but Lou had enough warmth to compensate for it.

"No, of course not. I just hope, whatever you choose, you choose it for the right reasons." Lou patted Toni's hand lightly that was laying against her midsection. "And darling," she said, pulling the girl's chin slightly up so she could look into her eyes. "You don't have what it takes to disappoint me." She had the softest hint of a smile in her lips. "I love you too much."

Toni fell asleep before she could say anything back, slipping into unconsciousness, finally comfortable, in mind and body.


End file.
